Kathleen

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34 plays

I don’t love love this jam band, but can’t this track out of my head (probably because a local radio host uses it as his theme). It fits our week well.

Postmodern Soul Jazz Week #6

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27 plays

Joey Baron > Wide Load
Composed by Joey Baron

Mike really likes this track, so everyone at KLM does too!

Postmodern Soul Jazz Week #5

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32 plays

Bill Evans > Cool Eddie
Composed by Bill Evans

Bill Evans (he played with Miles, but not that Bill Evans) is seven years younger than me, so it makes sense that he’d want to mash up funk and jazz. And it might not quite have that ‘strangeness’ Mike defined, but it would be pretty hard to imagine anyone even a generation older (maybe Herbie) remixing the stuff this way.

Postmodern Soul Jazz Week #4

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29 plays

Joey Baron > What
Composed by Joey Baron

My friend Mike’s into Joey Baron and has been trying to get me to listen for 10 years; this set with Arthur Blythe, Bill Frisell, and Ron Carter has finally hit me. And this postmodern soul tag has gotten under his skin. He writes:

“I like the concept. To me the soul part is a beat that makes you want to fuck; the jazz part is a sonic vocabulary hip enough to compensate for the missing singer; and the postmodern part is a willingness to tell a story that welcomes strangeness.”

Like he said.

Postmodern Soul Jazz Week #3

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42 plays

Dr. Lonnie Smith > Where It’s At
Composed by Michael Simpson, John Robert King & Beck David Hansen

What really goes in this postmodern soul jazz category that I invented this afternoon? Well, my Pandora A Go Go channel picked this one.

Lonnie’s soul jazz 1G, but Beck really defines postmodern, so it’s cool with me.

Postmodern Soul Jazz Week #2
Legends of the Organ #5

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62 plays

John Scofield > A Go Go
Composed by John Scofield

Don’t ask me what “Postmodern Soul Jazz” is, other than a conceit for this week’s playlist. But it was the only thing that came to mind about these great tracks. It’s not nearly as populist as the originals, but certainly more popular than most of what passes for modern jazz. These artists grew up with the hangover of baby boomer mash-ups that put The Beatles, James Brown, The Singing Nun, and Cannonball Adderley on the same radio playlists.

Don’t ask what possessed me to buy this record. I don’t particularly like jazz guitar, I’d never consciously heard this guy, and I knew I wouldn’t care. But, such it was that day at Tower Records on the Sunset Strip. Then, I couldn’t stop playing it, and it was two years before I knew the rhythm section was the famed (though I’d never heard of them) Medeski Martin & Wood.

Postmodern Soul Jazz Week #1
Legends of the Guitar #13
Legends of the Jam Band #1
Legends of the Organ #3